Knights of Purity
The Knights of Purity are a baseline paramilitary group. Description The Knights of Purity are a mutant-fighting organization set up as a private security company/Military Private Contractor specialized in fighting superpowered criminals. They work mostly by selling their services to local governments, in order to secure the necessary authorizations, although they derive some funds from toy licensing as well. They have a good track record at capturing non-mutant supercriminals alive, but somehow most mutants they confront are killed "resisting arrest."Have Yourself a Monkey Little Christmas - Or - The Uncanny X-Mas They are headed by Herbert Goodkind, brother of the Goodkind Group CEO Bruce Goodkind and uncle to Ayla Goodkind. Team organization The standard KoP tactical unit is a five-person team using specialized power armor for each role. Their armor is recharged by broadcast power from a deploying dropship flying overwatch. Their nomenclature is borrowed from baseball: *Batter: hand-to-hand specialist, with a big, powerful (but slow), heavily armored frame. The batter's main weapon is a club. *Pitcher: long-range specialist, wears a flight pack. Main weapon is a plasma cannon. *Catcher: capture unit. The armor has a heavily padded area in front, and includes four "Dr. Octopus"-style tentacles. *Runner: fast-action unit. *Shortstop: utility unit, with a more versatile armor accepting several different plug-in modules depending on the mutant they expect to confront. The Shortstop armor includes the KoP's "ace-in-the-hole" weapon, a powerful sonic blaster.Loose Cannons: Chapter 4 *Umpire: a sixth unit deployed in particular situations, it's not intended to enter direct combat, but to play an auxiliary and directing role. It's piloted by the team Tactical/Ops commander, and its main role is to supply power to the other units if they are unable to receive it directly from the dropship power emitters. The Umpire suit is based in the large and armored "Batter" suit, but instead of weaponry it carries eight suitcase-size batteries and power relaying equipment.Loose Cannons: Chapter 2 Morality and Function Most mutants fear the KoP, and after Chaka helped save an emerging mutant from them over Christmas, she and Phase had a big argument over whether they are needed or are just using any excuse to kill mutants. When the argument came up in the forums (Questions and Answers:Humanity First!), Diane defended Ayla's position like this: ---- Ayla *has* researched it. Or, at least, Ayla has read multiple Goodkind International documents on the subject. And you're forgetting something really important: when the KoP is *not* called in, and someone else has to handle the crisis, there's usually a lot more collateral damage, a lot more innocent bystanders being hurt or killed, an even *higher* percentage of mutants not surviving the entire exchange, and an even higher rate of injury and death to the police/SWAT/governmental/military forces called out to handle the threat. This is more a function of the situation than anything else: #KoP calls don't happen in cities like New York City, where there are plenty of established superheroes who are trusted by the city government: they call the supers in. #KoP calls don't happen if the kid manifests 'quietly' like Phase or Generator or Chaka or Fey, and there's no major explosions or eruptions or injuries. #KoP calls don't happen if there are already standard forces equipped with anti-mutant gear. When does the KoP get called? It's almost always one of two situations: a 'Gator incident' or a 'Jolt incident', although sometimes there is no clear distinction. If you're facing a 'Gator incident' and you don't have the Empire City Guard or the West Coast League or something similar, there's not much you can do. Remember, you're talking about an insane monster who had already killed a dozen cops, wiped out a SWAT team like it was a Peewee football team, and pretty much *eaten* a dozen armed soldiers who tried to stop him. Several KoP team members died in the final battle, and they stopped him within *yards* of a sorority house. The cops tried to stop him, and then tried to kill him, they just couldn't get the job done. Ditto for the SWAT team and the soldiers. They needed the KoP or the Dragonslayers or else serious paranormal force. Tell the parents of the girls in that sorority house that the KoP is not needed, or that they deal in unnecessary force. If you're facing an incident like Chaka and Chou's, if the KoP captures the boy, turns him over to the MCO as they're supposed to, and then returns to base, the law says that they did their job and no one was killed. The fact that at least one of the KoP power armor jockeys knows that certain MCO groups will then do bad stuff afterward is not seen in any report or statistic. And, if you're facing a newly-manifested teenager with unknown powers who is *not* a good guy (like Jolt), then you're in BIG TROUBLE. Think about it. Bad section of town. Young black man. Serious destruction of private property and maybe a cop down. Every cop in the city is going to subconsciously profile this kid as Nightmare Time: possibly a juvenile criminal who now has the power to take out the cops who were previously just barely keeping him in line. Tell me the cops who would roll on that case wouldn't be heavily-armed SWAT teams with mutant-killer weapons. It is an icky fact of life that cases like Jolt's often end really, really badly. (Although we do not know that the local Baltimore/DC MCO would have turned Jolt over to you-know-who and might have sent him off to Whateley instead; we just don't know, and we don't want to find out the hard way either.) The KoP may not be Mister Rogers and Captain Kangaroo, but on paper their track record looks *damn* good, especially when compared to anyone else. And it *has* to, or else no government official could ever dare calling them in. Right? And therefore, no matter how Ayla looks, he's not going to find what is not available to anyone except Herbert Goodkind and certain KoP higher-ups. His research is going to 'show' that the KoP is trustworthy and responsible, and a good call for any city without major superhero presence. Gen 2 Sometime before 2016, the KoP ceased to exist as a company. When pursuing an alleged "dangerous mutant" (actually a Whateley graduate whose MID had illegally been marked with a "Deadly Force Authorized" tag, and who had the misfortune of jaywalk in front of the KoP team), they entered the property of the mutant-friendly company Sidewinder Holding and destroyed one of its buildings. Sidewinder sued the KoP for destruction of property, compromising trade secrets, Injuries to personnel, trespassing and endangerment among other things. They also assisted all the twenty-seven families of the injured or dead personnel in their own separate lawsuits against the KoP. The pursued mutant also sued for millions in personal damages. They all refused to accept class action suit status. When the courts started awarding wins to the plaintiffs, hundreds of other mutants and their families victimized by the company started their own lawsuits, using the Sidewinder case as legal precedent. In three years, the Knights of Purity went bankrupt, and their assets (including arms, armors and intellectual property such as schematics) were seized by Sidewinder for debts unpaid.Don't Call Me a Pretty References Category:Business Category:Vigilante Groups Category:Power armor Category:Baseline Category:Diane Castle